And what is it to work with love?

It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your own heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth. It is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house. It is to sow the seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit. It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit. And to know that all the blessed dead are standing about you watching.

Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy. For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter loaf that feeds but half a man's hunger.

-Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet: 26 poetic essays

Freedom!

I have finished all my SLIS classes and I am DONE! The celebrating will have to commence when I get back to Bloomington; in the meantime, I will do a happy dance between loads of laundry, presentation practice, and packing.

Making it through this program is something I could NOT have done without all the help that I got along the way. It's hard to believe that last fall I thought I would have to leave because of finances. Now, I am this close to officially having my MLS (all I need is the paperwork to catch up with me).

To all of you who provided help - financially, emotionally, and any other "ly" I'm forgetting, I truly appreciate each and every one of you. Thanks, thanks, thanks!! Big hugs and a celebratory toast to you all.

Not long enough

I got back to Bloomington Saturday night around midnight. Callie was very glad to see me.

It was wonderful to be in Missoula, and to get to see all the people and places I did. A week is not enough to fit everything in, though. I did not get to see everyone, and I didn't get to spend as much time with people as I would have liked. In spite of that, it was a great week.

Thanks to Craig and Boomer for picking me up, letting me crash there the first night, and providing driving service. Thanks to Adriana, Halen, and Ian, for all their hospitality - for feeding me, giving me rides, and for rearranging bedrooms to fit me in. Thanks to Denise, Becky, and Kevin, for putting up with me for a few nights, and for the tour de bead stores. Kerry, thanks for all your help and advice. Paul, the cake was delicious, and I'm very glad you didn't screw things up (sorry I can't be there in July). Thanks to Tom for the river walk, and for showing me the bald eagles' nest. Sorry if I'm forgetting any one or anything.

I'm going to try to get photos posted in the next few days, after I figure out the mysteries of getting them from the camera to the computer. Summer school starts this week, so it's back to the grind.

Thanks

If the only prayer you said in your life was "thank you," that would suffice. --Meister Eckhart
And so I say thank you, for -

• my cat sleeping next to me, touching my thigh with all four of her paws
• the sunlight burnishing the few leaves left on the trees
• meeting people with views so very different from mine, so I can continue to expand my knowledge and my curiosity about how other people choose to live their lives. We're all trying to live and survive in the world, but we choose to do that in so many ways; it's pretty amazing when I think about it, and infinitely awe-inspiring.
• having the basics - shelter, food, clothing
• having the chance to make my life more interesting, and hopefully more comfortable in the future by pursuing a degree (even if the comfortable part is only an ideal at the moment)
• my family of birth and my family of choice (because who are your friends but the community you choose to gather around you to function like a family?)
• my health (a little battered, with the still healing shoulder/ankle, but basically intact)
• my citizenship in a country that allows me to question, protest, praise, and support its policies and ideals
• my creativity and my skill with writing
• my intelligence
• my sense of humor
  
  There are so many more things, both large and small, that I'm thankful for, everyday, so many things that it's hard to even begin to list them. I am just happy to be here, in this country, on this planet, breathing in and out, and trying to learn and grow as much as I can in whatever time I have. Life is good, very, very good.